


Life After Death

by Nanoochka



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: 1930s, Blasphemy, Brooklyn, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Catholic Guilt, Foreshadowing, Grief/Mourning, Internalized Homophobia, Jewish Bucky Barnes, Loss of Parent(s), M/M, Missing Scene, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Quote: I'm with you 'til the end of the line, Religion, Religious Guilt, Sarah Rogers - Freeform, self-blaming Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-09 21:53:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14724260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nanoochka/pseuds/Nanoochka
Summary: Four days ago, Steve learned the taste of his best friend’s mouth for the first time. His mother died the next afternoon.





	Life After Death

**Author's Note:**

> Contains discussions and depictions of grief over the death of a parent, though that death happens off-screen. Also contains depictions of Catholic guilt and period-typical homophobia. If those are possible triggers or uncomfortable subjects for you, please be forewarned.
> 
> Historical information about Steve's (canon) Brooklyn Heights neighbourhood and queer culture in 1930s Brooklyn based off of [this very excellent post](https://thingswithwings.dreamwidth.org/213805.html). Also, according to the MCU Wiki, Sarah Roger's DOD is October 15, 1936.

_October 18, 1936_

 

Steve is sweating through his Sunday best.

The unseasonably warm October sun beats down something awful, making Steve damp underneath his arms and at the small of his back, perspiration collecting at his temples and above his lip. He wishes to God there were some shade around here. The trees in Green-Wood Cemetery are huge old things, majestic and lush, but this ain’t Green-Wood. Only rich folks shell out for the ornate mausoleums or plots sheltered by shady oaks in that particular corner of Brooklyn, and--well. Steve’s not rich folk and never has been. Never will be either.

People like Steve go to rest in Flatbush. Holy Cross is a proper Catholic cemetery, Ma always said, but nowhere the lords of Fifth Avenue dream of finding eternal sleep, that’s for sure. There are a few trees here and there but a whole lot more brown, burned grass, plaques so small they’re half-swallowed by the earth after the first winter. Erased and forgotten after a couple generations. Who’ll remember Steve’s ma after he’s gone? For that matter, who’ll remember Steve?

All things considered, it’s a nice enough day for a funeral, sunny and bright and warm. Steve can hear kids out playing in the neighborhood just beyond the cemetery gates. Morosely Steve thinks it’s just one more way the world forgot Sarah Rogers. A true angel of a woman, gone forever, and the world goes right on spinning. Sun can’t even be bothered to hide its face for a day.

Every shovelful of dirt echoes deep in his gut as it rains down upon the lid of her coffin, rocks and clumps of soil crashing into the wood like a door being slammed repeatedly. An unstoppable desperate feeling rises up in Steve until he feels so frantic he could shout. His mother’s body is about to be sealed away forever, and he wants to fling himself in after her; he wants the earth to swallow them both up.

He’s never been one for hyperbole, but Steve is drowning in sorrow. The feeling is every asthma attack, every bout of panic that’s ever seized his body and crushed his lungs in its fist. And yet through it all, as much as he can’t tear himself away from the sight of the coffin disappearing beneath a growing mound of black-brown dirt, he can’t stop picturing Bucky’s drawn, pale face where he sat across the aisle from Steve during mass.

Bucky’s set foot in a church maybe three times in his life. Even looking uncertain and out of place, he dodged his parents’ hissed protests in order to take his rightful position at Steve’s side. But Steve shied away, went to stand by himself in the front pew with his head bent, trying to ignore the way Bucky’s eyes seemed to bore straight through him in their intensity. That wounded, betrayed gaze would have hollowed him out if Steve didn’t feel so damned empty already.

After the priest said the final blessing over Sarah’s coffin, Steve fled. On his way out, he saw Bucky’s parents and three sisters seated at the back of the church, deferential to a place of worship not their own. They cast an inquiring look his way, probably wanted to accompany him to the cemetery or, later, invite him home for lunch, to pass on their their condolences, their pity. To tell Steve he really oughtn’t be living on his own, that he could live with them and be taken care of, sleep in Bucky’s room like a brother, like one of the family. Just like Bucky and Steve have always wanted.

A swell fantasy, but Steve’s been avoiding Bucky for days. Ever since--

Ever since.

There’s a reason Bucky’s eyes held as much reproach as they did concern. He’s no dummy, never was. Besides which, Steve’s not that subtle. Not where Bucky is concerned, anyway.

Four days ago, Steve learned the taste of his best friend’s mouth for the first time. His mother died the next afternoon.

He’s heard his whole life that sin’s only reward is an eternity of punishment, but despite having sat through eighteen years of of Sunday masses and impassioned sermons, Steve doesn’t think it ever penetrated as a real threat. Not during all the times he’s gazed longingly at the tanned nape of Bucky’s neck or coveted the sweet curve of his smile. God shouldn’t get a say in who people choose to love. And Steve... he loves Bucky and always has. But while Steve was lost in a daydream about whether he could still catch the lingering ghost of Bucky’s lips, his mother lay in a TB ward across town and breathed her last.

Nothing has been right since then.

Steve stays until it’s done, until the last shovelful of dirt has been thrown and all that’s left is a ragged rectangle of earth like a hastily closed door. One by one the cemetery workers wander off, lips pressed awkwardly together like they mean to offer condolences but don’t. The last of them claps a hand against Steve’s shoulder, lingers a moment, meaningfully, but then he’s gone too. Steve catches backwards glances and snatches of muttered Italian as they saunter away. Maybe to another grave that needs filling in or home to their families, their own private tragedies Steve doesn’t know anything about.

The walk from the cemetery to his tenement in Brooklyn Heights takes over an hour. It’s a trek at the best of times, but on a day like today, when Steve has to stop to compose himself or suck in shallow, wobbly breaths as he fights not to cry in the middle of a busy street, it feels never-ending.

The sun is setting when Steve finally gets home. Outside stands none other than Bucky, smoking a cigarette with one foot kicked back against the wall like he’s the cat’s pyjamas. It’s so predictable that Steve would smile under different circumstances, but instead it only makes his chest ache harder. In his tailored navy suit and slicked-back hair, Bucky could be an honest-to-goodness movie star. He’s so devastatingly handsome, so perfect, that Steve sometimes can’t believe he’s real.

Their eyes meet for a split second as Steve rounds the corner, though he’s quick to drop his gaze, hunching his shoulders and stuffing his hands into his pockets like he might actually succeed in making himself smaller. Bucky tosses his cigarette away and stands up straight when Steve draws near. The lift of his eyebrows could mean “hello” or “where the fuck have you been?” but Steve doesn’t stop to figure out which. Bucky’s expression goes from hopeful to pinched when Steve merely pushes past him to start up the stairs, and from the corner of his eye, he sees Bucky purse his mouth as if to stopper his words.

“We looked for you after,” he finally says to Steve’s back as he climbs the stairs behind him, voice cautious as Steve’s ever heard it. Like he doesn’t trust himself not to say the wrong thing or doesn’t know how he’ll be received, doesn’t know anymore whether Steve is animal, vegetable, or mineral. “My folks wanted to give you a ride to the cemetery.”

Steve shrugs but doesn’t look up from his very intent scrutiny of the tops of his shoes and the worn, shoddy wooden steps beneath them. “I know, I’m sorry,” he answers quietly. Compared to the soft tenor of Bucky’s voice, Steve’s sounds rougher than gravel. “I just--kinda wanted to be alone.”

A beat passes as Bucky lets a word as foreign as “alone” sink in. Steve thinks it probably sounds as strange as it felt to say it. He can picture Bucky scrunching his face up in displeasure.

“How was it?” Bucky asks then, so strained and lonely that Steve could cry all over again.

He tries not to picture the thin wood of his mother’s coffin sagging beneath the weight of all that earth. Cradle to grave, she’s always been buried beneath something, it seems. Poverty on both sides of an ocean, a son who was more burden than joy. And after all that, Steve’s gone and made sure he’ll never see her again in this life or the next.

“It was okay,” he says instead, swallowing back the rest. “She’s next to Dad.”

For the first time in his life, Steve desperately wishes Bucky would just do what’s best for himself and _leave_. Steve’s no good for him, never was, and he wishes he knew how to make Bucky see it before Steve can drag him down too. Drag him down _further_.

But it’s Bucky, and Bucky seems as incapable of doing one as he is the other. “I was gonna ask--” he begins, and Steve feels himself go tense all over, body preparing for fight or flight. He’d hoped to have at least a few more days before this conversation came up, but it’s not his lot in life to hold on to the people he loves. He’s gotta lose ’em all in one fell swoop.

He tries to hide the shaking of his hands behind the act of searching for his keys, wanting to open up the door to the apartment--his, now--and put some desperately needed space between him and the temptation at his back. “I know what you’re gonna say, Buck. It’s just--”

Heedless of the exhaustion in Steve’s voice, or perhaps in spite of it, Bucky continues, wry, “We can put the couch cushions on the floor like when we were kids. It’ll be fun. All you gotta do is shine my shoes, maybe take out the trash.”

Where the good goddamn are his keys? Steve pats down his pockets and searches inside his jacket, but he can’t find them anywhere. Behind him there’s a scrape of a brick across the floor and a metallic clink as Bucky bends to retrieve the extra key from its hiding place.

“C’mon,” he says, handing it over, and for a second he sounds just as exasperated as he ever does when Steve goes borrowing trouble or Bucky finds him beaten and bloody in an alley.

He’s always said Steve is a stubborn bastard, but Steve never quite admitted it until this moment, when he finds, from somewhere, the strength to square his shoulders and set his jaw with a resolve he neither possesses nor feels. What he really wants is to throw himself sobbing into Bucky’s arms--and Buck would catch him too--but that’s not who he is or who Bucky expects him to be. And nothing good ever came of Steve being in Bucky’s arms before. There’s a fresh grave to prove it.

He forces himself to look up into Bucky’s face even as he curls his fingers around the key in his hand. Steadies his voice. “Thank you, Buck. But I can get by on my own.” _And you’re better off without me._

“The thing is--” Bucky won’t meet his gaze at first. Now that Steve’s actually looking, he can see that plain as day. Bucky’s eyes are half-closed, his face strained, and he shakes his head like he’s trying to knock himself out of it. But then he finally does look at Steve, a muscle leaping hard in his cheek, and the nakedness of his expression makes Steve’s chest go tight and funny all over again. “You don’t have to.” His hand lands solidly on Steve’s shoulder, and Bucky gives it a squeeze and leans in close to murmur, “I’m with you ’til the end of the line, pal.”

The honest simplicity of that vow is so sure, so absolute, that Steve feels his face crumple momentarily around a watery smile. He’d almost certainly float away if not for the grounding weight of Bucky’s hand on his shoulder, borne away by the love he can see shining out of him like Steve is some kind of precious bauble, marvelous and bright.

Steve would give anything to kiss that promise right off his lips. He can see it clearly in his mind: he and Buck living together in a shabby three-room apartment somewhere, shoulders brushing each morning over breakfast, legs tangling as they fell asleep together each night, breaths warm and close on each other’s faces. In the daytime Steve would draw by the light of the window, and Bucky would pull the curtains closed in the evening before he kissed Steve long and slow and deep, exactly the way Steve always thought about kissing him. It’s a nice fantasy, but how is it that, even with this punishment, the most precious woman in the world to him being taken away, he’s still so fucking _thick_?

“I know that, Buck,” he eventually forces out, and he can hear it starting, the wheeze of an oncoming panic or asthma attack, or both. “I know you mean it. But I can’t ask you for that.” He sucks in a whistling breath. “I’m not sure--”

“Not sure what?”

“That it’s such a good idea.”

The skin between Bucky’s eyebrows creases with the force of his frown. “ _What_ isn’t a good idea?”

Steve squeezes his eyes shut. “It’s my fault,” he starts, but then it all comes spilling out in a rush, water breaking past the dam, unstoppable. “I never should have kissed you, and now Ma’s gone. They warned us about what would happen, Buck. They _warned us_. But I didn’t listen because I just wanted you too damn--”

“Whoa, whoa, Steve, what the--hold the fuck on.”

Bucky’s eyes are huge in his suddenly pale face as he snatches the key out of Steve’s hand and shoulders past him. Glancing over his shoulder--it doesn’t matter, Steve’s neighbor's already left for the day to the bar down the street--he jams the key into the lock, and with a twist of the handle, wrenches the door open hard enough to earn a groan of protest from the old wooden frame.

“Get your ass inside,” he barks, then doesn’t bother waiting for Steve to obey before he shoves Steve forward and slams the door closed behind them.

Inside it’s a little stuffy from having been shut up all morning in the heat, but Steve can still smell the faint scent of the oatmeal he cooked for breakfast. Everything looks the same, even if Steve feels like nothing is or will ever be again.

“You mind tellin’ me what the shit you’re thinking?” Bucky demands, rounding on him. And oh, he’s angry, expression alight and--afraid, Steve realizes. Bucky’s pissed off because he’s rattled good and proper. “Flapping your trap out there where anyone can hear? Are you _crazy_?"

“That’s what I’m saying. I was crazy when I--when I kissed you.” It’s harder to say the second time around; Steve trips over his words in a graceless stutter. He takes a steadying breath. “But it was a mistake. Just look at what happened! We gotta put all that behind us now. It’s not worth it.”

“Please don’t tell me you’re dumb enough to believe your ma dying--God rest her soul--has _anything_ to do with that kiss.” Bucky went very still and very pale when Steve didn’t answer. “Jesus Christ,” he said, realization in his voice. Steve didn’t have the heart to point out the irony of Bucky taking the Lord’s name at a time like this. “You do. That’s why--that’s why you’ve been avoiding me like the plague, isn’t it? You think this is your doing.”

“Isn’t it?”

Almost hard enough to hurt, Bucky cuffs him upside the head. That makes Steve snarl at him, outraged and embarrassed, but then again, maybe that’s the whole point. When he shoves Bucky back, Bucky doesn’t rock backward even a little.

“Snap the hell out of it, Steve,” he growls, stepping in close. The force of his glower holds more fire than the furious angels adorning the stained-glass windows at Church of the Assumption. “I know you Catholics have some kind of guilt fetish, but this is just--beyond the pale. You ain’t God. Big as those balls of yours are, you ain’t in charge of who lives or who dies. And you ain’t important enough to affect something like your ma passin’ on, if you could ever be accused of wanting a thing like that. So get that through your thick fucking skull.”

“And you know this how? A lapsed Jew like you, Buck? You suddenly an expert on the machinations of G--d?”

Bucky cuffs him again, gets him in the ear this time. It hurts, and Steve hisses and grabs the side of head with a glare so fierce he’s surprised Bucky doesn’t catch fire.

“Don’t gotta be an expert to look around and see people dropping like flies around here,” Bucky sneers. “Jumping out windows, living on next to nothing--just look at you, at your ma. And now what they’re doing to people like me over in Europe? Caging up Jews like animals, shooting us in the street. And for what?” He grabs Steve’s shoulders and shakes him a little. “ _God doesn’t care about the little guy._ Not about us, Steve. Doesn’t care whether we live, doesn’t care whether we die, and sure as fuck doesn’t care what we do behind closed doors.”

Steve swallows and looks at Bucky, at his eyes all but bugging out of his head in fury. He’s never seen him like this before. For a moment Steve doesn’t speak, can’t bring himself to, but then he tries to take a breath and finds he can’t. Steve’s hand flies to his chest, and he bunches his shirt in his fist, struggles to find the air in the room. He looks up at Bucky plaintively.

In a very small voice, smaller than he’d ever let himself sound before, asks, “Then why’d Ma die? If God doesn’t care and I’m not being punished for what we did, why’d she die?”

Bucky makes a rough sound in his throat. All the ire drops out of his expression like a ton of bricks, and he reaches out to haul Steve to him, circling his arms around Steve and hugging him tight.

He’s so big his whole body seems to swallow him up, and with a harsh cry from deep in his chest, Steve latches on, hugging Bucky around the middle until he’s sure it must hurt. Something lets go in Steve that’s barely hung on by a thread for a while now, but he doesn’t even have the good sense to be ashamed of how he starts sobbing, messy, ugly sobs he tries to muffle against Bucky’s chest. He only winds up soaking his shirt through with tears and snot.

In true friend fashion, Bucky doesn’t grow tired or impatient holding him. Steve has no idea how much time passes before he gives one last snuffle and makes to pull away, but he thinks the sun has shifted a little lower in the sky, casting deeper shadows across the apartment. Bucky’s hand is in his hair where, evidently, he’s been petting Steve through his sobs in wordless comfort, and as Steve draws back, Bucky keeps his palm cradled against the back of his head.

“Sorry,” Steve mumbles, still sniffling, and Bucky just shrugs and shakes his head. Brings his other hand up to cup Steve’s cheek the same way his mother used to, except his hand is larger and hotter and makes Steve’s stomach twist in funny ways.

“What you gotta be sorry for, Stevie?” he asks in a soft voice. There isn’t a soul alive who sounds as calm or hypnotic as Bucky when he speaks in that tone, and as Steve looks up into his eyes, he feels it crash down on him, the full weight of the aching, terrible love he feels for his friend. Between them his heart beats frantic and hollow. “Your ma just died. I’d worry more if you _weren’t_ upset.”

“Don’t mean I have to get upset all over your shirt.”

Another scritch of Bucky’s nails across his scalp, an indulgent but kind smile. It’s so very hard for Steve not to lean into his hand, into his body. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times,” Bucky says. “Nothing I wouldn’t do for you, up to and including letting you ruin my best suit.”

Mutely Steve nods, the words stuck. His throat seems to close up even farther when Bucky puts two fingers under his chin to tip his face up, staring down at him with an expression that’s both comforting and concerned.

“Tell me you’re gonna let go of this ‘God’s punishing me’ baloney,” he says, half-pleading. That’s something Steve’s never heard before; even when Bucky is trying to drag him kicking and screaming out of an alley fight, he never begs. “No one punishing you but yourself, and you’ve had enough heartache for one lifetime already.” Steve inhales sharply through his nose when Bucky gently thumbs his bottom lip, pressing down into the flesh as softly as a kiss. He drops his gaze to Steve’s mouth, and his voice becomes a whisper. “I’d really like it if you let me make you happy for a change instead.”

The smallest of sounds escapes Steve’s mouth, halfway between a whimper and a sigh. “Bucky--” He knows it’s going to get him in trouble before he even says anything, but he can’t not. “I’ve dragged you into a lot of dumb situations in the past. Don’t say I haven’t,” he rushes out when it looks like Bucky’s about to argue. “I don’t want to get you into hot water. Not again. Not for this.”

For a moment Bucky lowers his hands and drops his chin. Steve can see him push his tongue against the inside of his cheek, something he does when he’s trying to hold his words back. That’s as unlike him as anything since Bucky almost never passes up an opportunity to argue with Steve, regardless of the subject.

Steve is so unused to his silence that he starts to ramble. “And you’ve got your whole life ahead of you. There’s always a string of ladies trailing after you--you could marry a nice gal, start a family. Find a good job and get the hell out of this shithole. Not throw your life away on someone like--”

“Steve.” The word is spoken quietly but with such unmistakable anger that Steve shuts up immediately, teeth clacking together with how quickly he snaps his mouth closed. Bucky looks at him again and his gaze is hard, furious. “Just shut the hell up, Steve.”

“I’m not saying anything untrue,” Steve answers, mulish as ever.

“But you’re still talkin’ a whole lotta shit.” Bucky shakes his head and shifts his gaze off to the side, refusing to look at Steve as he plants his hands on his hips. “You think you know what’s best for everyone, but you haven’t got a single fucking clue what you’re doing with your own life or what you want.”

That stings, but not because Bucky doesn’t have a point. “What does it matter what I want if it’s something both our lives could get ruined over?” And just in case Bucky wants to start in again on the whole divine punishment angle, Steve adds, “I’m not just talking about heaven or hell. You know what they do to fellas who--” He swallows around the suddenly huge lump in his throat. “Who enjoy the company of other fellas.” Might as well say it out loud since that is, after all, what this is all about. No hiding from it, considering they’ve already kissed. The cat is out of the bag.

“This is about more than enjoying each other’s company,” Bucky says. Tentatively, as if waiting to see if Steve will pull away or flee, he bites his lip and slides his hands around Steve’s middle. His big palms almost span Steve’s waist, and God, the way Bucky looks at him. Tender but with an edge of nervousness anyone but Steve could overlook. “Isn’t it?”

What can he say to that? There aren’t enough words in the language to properly explain how much more--infinitely more--Steve feels for him than that. He could spend the whole rest of his life trying and not even come close.

“You want more,” he eventually manages. It isn’t what he means at all, but it’s the only thing that comes to mind. And maybe a small part of Steve wants--needs--Bucky to say out loud all the things Steve never could.

Bucky laughs, not happily. It seems surprised out of him. To stifle the sound, he buries his face against Steve’s neck.

“It’s--damn it to hell, Steve. It’s not about wanting. I don’t just _want_. It’s like saying I want to breathe or not breathe when I don’t get a say in the matter.” He shakes his head again like he can’t believe the words coming out of his own mouth, pulls away to look Steve in the eye. For a moment Steve has to wonder how much he’s been holding back, and for how long. “It’s everything. You’re my whole goddamn life. I’m fucking in love with you, you little punk. Okay? Always have been, from the very start.”

Steve feels his chin wobble. His breaths are coming short and fast like he’s about to have an attack, although none comes. He feels a little lightheaded, maybe, like he needs to sit down before he falls down. But it isn't until Bucky mutters, “Oh, Stevie,” and “C,mere,” and then reels him in for a hug that Steve knows he's a goner.

He goes, flinging his arms around Bucky's neck and letting himself be wrapped up tight, and erupts in sobs anew. Ugly, sloppy whines against Bucky's neck he wouldn't let anyone see but this man right here. His best friend, his whole world. He said it right, did Bucky: _his everything_.

“I didn't know,” he hiccups out as Bucky strokes the back of his hair and holds him tight. “I’ve loved you for so long, Buck. I didn’t know.”

Bucky sighs again, then laughs and squeezes Steve tighter, ducks his head to nuzzle the sharp point of Steve's shoulder. “You fuckin’ putz. How could you not? I've practically been shouting it from from the rooftops so loud I'm sure all of Brooklyn must have cottoned on years ago. But not you, Stevie, eh? Not the one I've been sweet on since we were kids. Fuckin’ oblivious as the day you were born. You need an engraved card or somethin’? Need me to take out an ad in the paper, hire a skywriter, maybe?”

That shakes a watery laugh out of Steve. He tries to pull back enough to sock Bucky in the shoulder, doesn't quite manage any real conviction behind it. “Shut up. You weren't that obvious, not until you kissed me. You aren’t a smooth as you give yourself credit for, Barnes.”

“No, you're just as dumb as two rocks rubbed together. Don’t blame it on me.”

Steve narrows his eyes at Bucky, sets his jaw like Buck says he does just before he’s about to pick a fight with a wall. But instead of drawing a look of amused exasperation from Bucky like it normally does, his eyes go half-lidded and soft, and he drops his gaze to Steve’s mouth again, same way he did a few minutes ago when Steve was sure he was about to be kissed.

“God, I love it when you’re pissed off,” Bucky murmurs, voice low and silky and doing funny things to Steve’s insides. He bites his lip, probably doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, and the tiny flare of indignation that got Steve’s blood up is replaced by a warmth of a different kind to see Bucky looking at him that way. It’s hot, slow, burns all tender and pleasant like falling asleep in the sun on the beach at Coney Island. Steve knows next to nothing about makin’ time with a girl, not like this Casanova here, but he knows what that look means.

He suddenly has an enormous amount of sympathy for any woman Bucky’s turned that expression on before, and no wonder he has such a reputation around the neighbourhood. That look makes his skin feel suddenly three sizes too small, and Steve could do a whole hell of a lot more than kiss Bucky right now if he keeps talking like that.He’s a little incredulous that all this time, Bucky wanted to be looking at him that way instead.

“You always lay it on this thick?” Steve deadpans. “Don’t know how all the women in Brooklyn don’t see you coming--”

Bucky laughs, delighted at Steve’s vitriol, his transparent jealousy. “Oh-ho, there’s what I’m talking about,” he crows. He loves the sound of his own voice as much as he does riling Steve up. Even before all this funny business started, this was something Steve knew about him, sure as he knows the sun rises in the east and sets in the west and that Bucky has a mole behind his ear and another beneath his right nipple. “You get that look in your eye… You gonna sock me one, Stevie? You gonna--”

There’s no shutting him up when he gets going like this, except, it seems, when Steve presses forward and shoves their mouths together, lifting his hands to clutch Bucky’s neck so he doesn’t overbalance on his tiptoes.

Immediately Bucky kisses him back; his fingers spasm against Steve’s waist like he just got an electric shock, like he just burned himself on a too-hot cup of coffee. But then he’s clutching back, clutching Steve close as he can get, before all too suddenly he lets go, wrenches himself away with a quiet groan of disappointment. He looks at Steve, seems torn between the desire to kiss the life out of him properly and wanting to make sure Steve’s okay. He’s always checking. For as long as they’ve known each other, he’s always cared more about Steve’s well-being than his own.

“You sure about this, Stevie?” he asks, brow furrowed. His lips are very red, his eyes more black than blue with how wide his pupils have gone in the dim light of Steve’s apartment. Every day Steve thinks all over again that Bucky’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, like waking up to a Monet you never run out of new ways to look at. This time he’s positive it’s actually true, that Bucky’ll never be more breathtaking than he does right now, caught between a fantasy and a dream come to life, his breath a warm promise against Steve lips. “I know what I said, but--”

“Buck, just--shut up,” Steve interrupts. He tugs Bucky down until they can press their foreheads together, feels Bucky sigh and the soft flutter of eyelashes against his cheeks as his eyes fall shut. When Bucky sweeps his big hands up to cradle Steve’s shoulder blades, almost spanning his whole narrow back, Steve sighs too. “If you’re gonna kiss me, than kiss me. I--I want you to.”

From this close, he can’t see Bucky smile. But he can hear it in his voice when Bucky says, “Oh yeah? How bad?” Steve can picture perfectly the cocky tilt of his smirk.

Steve huffs a breath and starts to say, “Less and less by the minute,” but he barely gets the first word out before Bucky’s lips are back on his.

This time it’s more forceful, and Steve gasps at the frank intent behind it, the powerful clench of Bucky’s hands around the fabric of his jacket. Bucky isn’t playing, isn’t hesitating, not anymore. The moment Steve opens his mouth, Bucky licks inside like it was his plan all along to shock Steve stupid, flicks his tongue once against Steve’s bottom lip before he slides that slick wetness against Steve’s own.

Once Steve saw a live wire at a construction site Bucky used to work at, some fancy new building in Manhattan they’d never get to see the inside of when it was finished. The wire had thrashed and crackled against the ground, spitting blue-white electricity everywhere like the flame of an angry dragon. While the other men stepped back, calling out warnings to each other to stay clear, Bucky had pushed in front of Steve like he meant to protect him, even at his own risk. He was forever doing stuff like that, but he isn’t trying to protect Steve now. Not from himself. If Bucky’s the live wire, writhing and throwing sparks everywhere, Steve’s the one who catches fire, lights up brighter than a blazing star against Bucky’s magnificence.    

Their first kiss was tentative, unsure; scared. Everything this isn’t. Bucky nips and licks at Steve’s mouth, groans unabashedly when Steve bites back, shoves until Bucky stumbles against something that scrapes across the floor--the kitchen table. He lets go of Steve’s back and reaches for two handfuls of his ass instead, jerking Steve against him, letting him feel the whole incredible length of his body, his strong shoulders and firm chest, the hardness of his cock against Steve’s belly, which is as tall as Steve can make himself, even on the tips of his toes.

Steve’s arms are around Bucky’s neck, and like Bucky can read his mind--probably can, by this point--he damn well hoists Steve up, tugs at him insistently until Steve gets what he’s after and wraps his legs around Bucky’s hips. It makes their erections rub together through their pants, and they both moan.

Experimentally he grinds against Bucky again, laughs breathlessly when Bucky tears his mouth away with a bitten-back whine. He presses his mouth to the side of Steve’s face, breathes harshly there for a moment like he’s trying to pull himself together, but then he chuckles too, a quiet huff against Steve’s cheek.

Impatient to hear Bucky make that noise again, to feel that firecracker burst of pleasure light him up from inside, Steve squirms, but this time Bucky’s on to him. He turns them, sits Steve down on the table as easily as a doll. “What do you want, sweetheart?” he says lowly, close to Steve’s ear.

“I’d settle for you not treating me like a girl,” Steve grumbles, bristling.

Bucky snorts and rolls his eyes but kisses Steve’s cheek, mollifying. “I’m not treating you like a girl,” he murmurs and starts to push Steve’s jacket off his shoulders. He trails his lips down to Steve’s jaw, then his neck, nudging until Steve shivers and tilts his head so Bucky can mouth against his throat, his Adam’s apple, which he gives a frankly filthy-sounding suck. The way his lips catch Steve’s faint stubble gets Steve the rest of the way to hard. He finds himself hitching his hips involuntarily, looking for friction, and at this Bucky gives an appreciative hum and says, “I’m treating you like you’re _mine_.”

Steve’s voice comes out breathless. “‘m not your girl either.”

“Pain in my ass is more like it,” Bucky retorts. He bites Steve’s neck reproachfully until Steve flinches and shoves at him, laughing through his ire until he can feel Bucky grinning against his throat too.

Bucky pulls back enough to shrug out of his own suit jacket. Uncharacteristically for him, he lets it fall to the ground and leaves it there. If he was a picture before, the sight of him in nothing but his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, nestled between Steve’s legs like he belongs there, makes Steve’s mouth go dry. A hungry sound escapes his throat as Bucky loosens his tie, though it quickly turns to an unimpressed grunt when Bucky slants him a knowing look. He winks, all too aware of his own appeal. Normally Steve’d give him hell for it, but he just hauls Bucky back in for a kiss, fumbles with the buttons of his waistcoat and feels him make short work of Steve’s tie next.

By unspoken agreement they manage to get each other the rest of the way undressed, at least from the waist up. The warmth of Bucky’s chest and stomach, pressed against his own, unravels whatever was left of Steve’s control. Their skin, warm, sticks together in places. Bucky is broad and strong and muscular, everything Steve’s not, but it’s not jealousy that makes Steve’s gut clench.

Before long it’s like they’re trying to climb inside each other all over again, mouths hungry, biting, hands clutching. Steve feels incoherent and unstoppable. He clings to Bucky’s neck and Bucky’s hands are under his ass, encouraging Steve to grind up against him, legs locked around Bucky’s waist. Steve wrenches himself away with a noisy gasp. Bucky stares at him with wide eyes and his pretty mouth swollen, red.

Steve may not be the most experienced guy on the block--or at all--but he’s lived in Brooklyn Heights most of his life. He’s no idiot; he knows the kinds of things fellas get up to in alleyways or at the St. George’s Hotel. If only his words could keep up.

“Do you wanna--” he starts, puffing hard, then clams up with his cheeks blazing. Bucky arches an eyebrow, and Steve huffs. At least Buck’s not making fun of him out loud. Steve glances downward meaningfully and tries again. “Y’know.”

Bucky’s laugh is low and kind of dirty, but the way he cups Steve’s cheek is tender. “No, I don’t know, Stevie,” he says fondly, teasing, then bumps their noses together. Somehow it turns into him kissing Steve’s jaw again, like he can’t stay away. His hands are already at Steve’s belt. He undoes it deftly, then the button and zipper, ignoring the funny breath Steve sucks in. Bucky adds, “You’re gonna have to narrow it down for me.”

“Do you wanna--oh God.”

“What? Use my hand?” He’s already past the waistband of Steve’s pants, snaking his hand into his boxers to curl around him. Bucky bites his lip and makes a noise at the back of his throat when he swipes his thumb against the copious wetness at the tip of Steve’s cock. Steve whines, twitches. He doesn’t even know why the hell Bucky’s asking when he’s just-- “Or maybe you want me to use my mouth.”

Shamelessly Steve moans; he can’t keep it in. His hips, a mind of their own, hitch and try to follow Bucky’s hand as he gives Steve a couple strokes, leaves him halfway to gone just from that. He’s eighteen years old, and the man he’s loved for as long as he can remember has his hand down his pants. This isn’t going to last very long.

Fumbling, Steve’s grabs for Bucky’s belt and ignores how many tries it takes before he gets it open, fingers turned stupid on him. Almost as much as Steve wants Bucky to keep touching him like that, he wants to give back as good as he’s getting. The hot stiffness of Bucky’s prick brushes against Steve’s wrist, drawing that now-familiar murmur of encouragement, but when Steve finally gets his hand on Bucky’s cock, it’s him who gasps, sways closer to suck at Bucky’s collarbone desperately.

“What if I wanted something else,” he says, muffling himself against Bucky’s chest.

Bucky’s voice has finally lost some of its self-assuredness. His breathing’s gone a bit ragged. “What’s that?”

“What if I wanted--” Steve swallows. It’s not entirely from Bucky’s hand driving him slowly out of his mind, though that doesn’t help. “What if I wanted you to put it in me,” he eventually manages.

In answer Bucky’s cock spits a fat glob of wetness into Steve’s fist. Wordlessly Bucky clutches him close and shudders in Steve’s arms, then mutters a faint “Jesus Christ, Stevie,” against his ear in a higher pitch than Steve’s ever heard from him.

Steve basically understands what he’s asking, the mechanics of it. Basically.

But before he can push further, Bucky’s scooped him up and hauled him over to the next room and Steve’s bed. It’s less than half a dozen steps across the apartment with Bucky’s big stride.

Steve lands on his back with a small, not entirely painless “oof,” only to lose it in a groan when he gets a look at Bucky’s expression. He looks half-mad, hair in total disarray from Steve’s hands, eyes so wide and desperate he looks like someone slapped him in the face.

“ _Steve_ ,” he says again, then climbs on top and rubs against Steve even as he cups his face sweetly. His words come out in a rush, almost a jumble. “Is that what--I mean, you want that?”

“Maybe?”

Bucky snorts. “ ‘Maybe,’ he says.” He stares at Steve critically, seeing through his bravado. If you wanna call that bravado. “D’you even know what you’re asking?”

“Fuck you, Barnes.” Steve shoves him, but Bucky’s like a rock. If anything he just holds Steve tighter. “I’m not an idiot. I’ve heard things.”

He makes a disbelieving noise. “You’ve heard--”

“You saying you don’t want to?” Steve asks, belligerent. “Fine, then, just get off--”

“I didn’t say nothin’ of the sort!” Bucky protests and pushes himself up on his hands so he can give Steve the hairy eyeball. He sounds long-suffering. “Jesus, Mary, ’n Joseph, Steve, you’re nastier than a wet cat. Was just making sure.”

“Just because you’ve had your hand up every girl’s skirt between here and Jersey--”

Bucky claps a hand over his mouth. “Steve. _Stop_.” He sighs, ignores the way Steve spits a muffled obscenity at him and doesn’t move his hand until Steve quiets down.

Eventually Steve does because--well. He’s kind of shooting himself in the foot if Bucky gets so fed up with him he changes his mind.

“I don’t care if you wanna fuck me, or if you want me to fuck you”--hearing those words out Bucky’s mouth makes Steve suck in a breath, and his cock twitches--“and I don’t care if we just lie here all night. I just wanna be with you, alright?” Bucky strokes his cheek, stares into his eyes. It’s almost vomit-inducingly sweet, and damned if Steve can look away, even for a millisecond. “I could care less about the details as long as you’re my guy.”

Something prickles at the corner of Steve’s eyes. He blinks, too many times, and Bucky must notice because he leans in and kisses him, so deeply that Steve’s lost to it in seconds. He winds his arms around Bucky’s neck, cradles him between his legs, holds him there, closer, harder until Bucky is a force pressing him down into the bed, like gravity.

Bucky pulls away without pulling away; his lips, when he drags his kisses from Steve’s mouth to his jaw, his neck, never once leave his skin. He mouths over Steve’s chest, worships there like Steve doesn’t mostly resemble an old bird skeleton, and like this is little more than a magnificent distraction, he sets his hands at wrestling the last of Steve’s clothes off him, pants and underwear, shoes and socks.

“Goddamn, Stevie,” Bucky murmurs.

Somehow he’s managed to move so he’s straddling Steve’s legs, and he sits back to study him, eyes full, looking like an earthbound god with his sun-kissed physique and unbuttoned trousers riding low on his hips, the flushed head of his cock peeking above the waistband of his boxers. Having Bucky-- _Bucky_ , who’s so beautiful it makes physical pain stir in Steve’s chest--watch him this way makes Steve tremble with something so far beyond self-consciousness that he doesn’t have a name for it. Like Bucky’s seeing into every part of him. It’s beyond Steve why he’d even want to, but he’s here. Bucky sees all Steve is and stares at him like _Steve’s_ the one worth taking a second look at.

Bucky sucks absently on his bottom lip and trails his hand down the center of Steve’s chest with the same reverence reserved for Sunday mass. “I can’t get enough of you,” he says. Whispers it, like a secret. “You’re so fucking beautiful it makes me feel like I’m going outta my mind.”

“Oh God, shut up,” Steve says, blushing from the tops of his ears down to his sternum. He tries to writhe away, tries to hide himself, but Bucky comes back up to crowd him and pins Steve’s arms above his head.

It brings their lips close, and for a moment all they do is breathe into each other’s mouths. Steve twitches against the feeling of Bucky’s suit trousers against his bare skin, aches at the odd pleasure of it, the little thrill. In answer he feels Bucky roll his hips, grinding slowly against him until Steve shudders and bites back another cry, and at the sound, Bucky moans too, quietly. Like it’s been punched out of him.

Steve strains against Bucky’s lips to kiss him again, licks at his mouth teasingly, getting a feel for what’ll slowly drive them both crazy. Bucky responds accordingly, growling, crushing their lips together hard enough to hurt. It’s a mystery that’ll dog Steve to the end of his days how the two of them managed to go this long without touching each other before now. His desire for Bucky’s always been like a tornado inside him, one smile or slow look away from escaping Steve’s control. And this whole time they’ve just been two storms raging from opposite sides of a pane of glass.

Eventually Bucky releases Steve’s wrists, and together they get Bucky out of the rest of his clothes. Steve wants to look at him, commit his body to memory, see if he looks different now that he’s staring at him with the eyes of a lover and not a friend. But looking at him means letting go, and if Steve thought rubbing himself, naked, against Bucky’s clothes was a revelation, the slide of skin on skin is like a miracle, word made flesh.

Bucky is a whirlwind, on some kind of mission Steve hasn’t a hope in hell of keeping up with, can only grip Bucky’s hair and shake deliriously when Bucky kisses down his chest again. He licks over Steve’s right nipple, fastens his mouth around it with a tease of teeth, and Steve damn near arches right off the bed with a soft cry. Each nip and suck pulls sounds from Steve’s throat he’s never heard himself make before. It’s unlike anything he’s ever--

One of Bucky’s hands is back around his cock, the other against the swell of Steve’s ass to scoop him closer, and he’s looking at Steve up the length of his body from between his legs. Their eyes meet. He’s teasing his lips at the crease between Steve’s hip and thigh, almost brushing his balls, he’s wrapping his mouth around the head of Steve’s cock and sucking, and Steve’s moaning--Steve’s coming--Steve’s just--

Steve is shaking and shuddering and flying apart at the seams, but after the initial blaze of pleasure has roared its way through him, he can’t stop the way his body continues to tremble. A sob wrenches itself from his throat, and Steve realizes, horrified, that he’s crying, like everything’s in him broken at once all over again.

“Hey, hey. Steve.”

Bucky seems to notice what’s happening before Steve does; he’s crawled back up Steve’s body and pulled him into his arms just as Steve attempts to cover his face so Bucky can’t see his tears, but there’s no use. Bucky’s lips are on his cheeks and beneath his eyes, kissing away his tears, and Steve shudders again and buries his face against Bucky’s neck. He tries to stop the crying, wrench the tears back into him, but it’s no use. He can’t get the floodgates closed again now that they’re open.

“God--oh God, I’m sorry, Buck,” he snuffles out frantically. Everything comes out garbled, as much from Steve trying to smother the words into Bucky’s skin as the fact that he can’t get his own damn voice to stop shaking. In spite of himself, he winds his arms around Bucky’s waist and holds on. For dear life, it feels like. “For a second I just--I was--and then I remembered--”

He gets an encouraging squeeze in response. Bucky tangles their legs together and kisses the top of Steve’s hair exactly the way Steve’s ma used to do. He never noticed until now she and Bucky both had the same tendency. “Hush up,” Bucky murmurs and rubs his back. “I wasn’t trying to make you forget, Steve. I was just trying to make you feel good.”

Steve struggles at that. He tries to throw off Bucky’s arms, but they’re like a steel trap around him, holding fast. With a growl of frustration, Steve shoves against his chest and bites out, “I don’t des--”

“You do.” Of the two of them, Bucky’s always been the calm, rational one, slow to anger where Steve’s like a match just waiting for a spark. Even with Steve cussing at him, hissing and spitting like an angry cat, Bucky’s words are even, quiet. Patient. As steady and enduring as his embrace. “You can’t punch your way out of everything, Steve. Sometimes you just gotta feel it.”

The air goes out of him; Steve deflates, tries to take a breath around another hitching sob that just pisses him off more and exhausts him in equal measure. He’s quiet a long time, chewing on his thoughts until he finally says, barely above a whisper, “I don’t know if I’m strong enough to feel this, Buck.”

Like he just said the magic word, Bucky pulls way just enough to look into Steve’s face. He reaches up to cup his cheeks, touches their foreheads together, then lays a gentle kiss on his mouth. He makes it seem so simple, but Bucky’s eyes are warm, unflinching when he says, “You’re the strongest guy I know. But for this, you don’t gotta do it alone. That’s why you got me.”

Steve’s lips quirk unhappily as he tries to hold back more tears. For the strongest guy Bucky knows, supposedly, he sure cries an awful damn lot. Difference is, this might be the one place he doesn’t have to hide it. He sees that now.

Bucky sighs. “Aw, c’mere, bonehead,” he says, and pulls Steve close again. Uses himself like he can be a shield against the dark places, and Steve--Steve lets him.

 

+

 

It happens the following morning. Steve wakes up from a dream about his ma, takes a moment to orient himself and shudders at the memory of her arms around him, at the slow realization that it’s just that: a memory.

His tears seem to know it before he does, already wet on his cheeks. But then he sees Bucky there beside him, expression relaxed in asleep, one arm curled around Steve’s waist protectively. Every morning sunlight floods the front room where Steve sleeps, filtering in between the tenements, and softens the places where the wallpaper is stained or peeling, the cracks in the plaster, the faded old curtain strung up around his bed. His home. It halos Bucky too, his planes and angles, the impossible pout of his lips and the slope of one shoulder above the sheet. Also his home, thinks Steve. His chest still clenches with grief, but it eases a little too, calms somewhat at the sight of Bucky’s face so near to Steve’s on the pillow.

He can’t stop his tears from falling, and they don’t. Bucky was right that Steve’s going to feel this for--a long time. He feels heartbroken and overwhelmed, like his feelings are a tsunami and Steve’s just a rowboat clinging to the side of the wave. But he looks at Bucky and he doesn’t feel so scared. Not anymore.

Bucky gives a sleepy groan and a confused murmur when Steve rolls him onto his back, wakes more quickly after that at the feeling of Steve climbing on top of him and fitting their mouths together. They do it like that in the soft chill of early morning, before the shy warmth of this late-season sun has a chance to catch up with the day. It’s fumbling and uncertain, but Bucky’s hands are steady on Steve’s hips as they move, expression poleaxed and hurt-looking when Steve gets Bucky inside of him and rocks against him until he can feel that wave starting to crest. He isn’t going to drown. It’ll carry him over, carry them over together. Bucky’s soft moans and calls of his name the sweetest, most perfect goddamn thing Steve’s ever heard. On Bucky’s tongue, Steve’s name could be a benediction.

“I’m sorry I doubted this,” he says after, when they are spent and out of breath and skin sticking with sweat and come, more tangled in the sheets than when they woke. Steve watches the contrast of his pale, skinny fingers against the dark stubble of Bucky’s jaw, thinks about how he’d love to bury himself in the sweet cleft of his chin forever. Bucky’s eyes are so soft, like he can read it in Steve’s gaze. “I’m sorry I talked about this like it was some kind of curse instead of what it might be instead.”

Bucky smiles at him, dips his chin so he can bite playfully at Steve’s fingers. It earns a laugh, surprised out of Steve’s throat. And oh, is it worth it to laugh through the pain to see how Bucky beams at the sound. “And what’s that?” he asks.

Steve shrugs. Blushes. The words are on the tip of his tongue, but he stumbles over himself trying to get them out, suddenly bashful. “I dunno,” he mumbles. “A… a gift, maybe.”

A gentle huff escapes Bucky. Then he giggles, maybe the most absurd sound in the world. When Steve blushes again, this time it’s from pleasure. “You might be onto something there,” Bucky manages to get out between his chuckles. “People tell me I’m God’s gift all the time.”

Steve groans in exasperation and buries his face in his hands, tries to roll away, but Bucky stops him with a crow of delight. He hugs him hard, kisses the side of Steve’s head repeatedly, lips smacking loudly. Playful as a seal, as a man in love. If yesterday was the angriest Steve’s ever seen him, this is certainly Bucky at his most silly. His most _joyous_. It’s quite a thing to behold. A new side to him, just when Steve thought he’d seen all of Bucky Barnes there was to see. To think he’d almost missed it.

After a moment, Bucky’s goofiness subsides, and he cuddles Steve closer in that annoyingly sincere way he has, the way that makes Steve think they’re the only two people in the world. In this little bed, tucked away in their corner of Brooklyn where they can exist for themselves and no one else, maybe they are. Bucky smiles at him. The love Steve sees there could be enough to set the earth back on its axis.

“Make for me a sanctuary,” Bucky murmurs and leans close so his lips barely brush Steve’s ear. That low, enveloping quality of his voice makes Steve shiver more than the words. “I’ll be yours, and you’ll be mine. Just like always, pal.” And before Steve can speak up, Bucky puts a finger over his lips and says, “Don’t go telling me what a bad Jew I am for blaspheming. I’m literally naked in bed with another man right now, and a Catholic one at that. That ship has sailed, my friend.”

Steve just looks at him patiently until Bucky pulls a face. “I wasn’t gonna say anything,” he says.

“Oh yeah? Why do I find that hard to believe?”

“You’re the one who just said you’re a bad Jew. Lack of faith goes with the territory.”

With a groan and a playful growl, Bucky seizes Steve around the middle and wrestles him onto his back, uses his weight to pin him to the bed. Steve finds it in him to laugh, gives in easily and lets Bucky kiss him, opening his mouth so Bucky can lick at his lips and suck on his tongue until Steve could beg for more. He spends a while learning the curve of Bucky’s lips more slowly, the slick of his tongue. Exactly the lazy, easy sort of thing he’s thought about for a while but never had a name for. All this time, it was just… love.

“What if we _did_ have one?” he asks when their noses are pressed together, lips just touching. Bucky’s eyes are closed like that of a contented cat, sunlight caught in his lashes.

He doesn’t bother to open them, but Steve feels him smile a little. “Have one what?”

“A sanctuary.” Steve pauses, swallows once. Knows that’ll probably get Bucky to sit up and look at him, and he doesn’t have long to wait. At the arch of Bucky’s eyebrow, expectant, Steve continues, “What if you moved in here and we just… made a go of it. Me and you.”

“Me. Move in here.”

Steve shrugs. The way Bucky’s looking at him is so strange and unreadable that he can’t help but start to bristle, frustrated by the inscrutability of his expression, usually so open to him. “I know it’s not exactly up to the standard of living you’re used to--”

Absurdly Bucky kisses him again, forcefully. Not in anger, but hard enough for Steve to know he spoke out of turn, that he ought to walk back his words.

Bucky pulls away after a minute, and they’re both breathing hard. “You really are something else, Rogers.”

Offering an apologetic smile and a quirk of his eyebrows, Steve tries, “That’s why you like me, right?”

Bucky snorts. “Maybe you didn’t notice, but I spend ninety percent of my time here already.”

“The other ten percent of the time, I had to listen to Ma complain about the freeloader always in her house,” Steve answers flatly. “Believe me, I noticed.”

Caught out, Bucky slants a crooked and utterly unrepentant smile and doesn’t deny it. Instead he wraps a lock of Steve’s hair around one finger and gives it a little tug, eyes traveling over his face, thoughtful. He drops his voice to a murmur. “Well, don’t tell anyone, but I kind of planned to just keep hanging around until you stop asking me to leave.”

For a moment they just stare at one another in silence, waiting each other out. Then Steve gives Bucky’s chest a little shove. “Get off.” He struggles, briefly, to disentangle himself from Bucky’s grasping hands and long legs, and when Bucky finally sighs and lets him go, he rolls out of bed and flicks the sheet back so he can pad across the room to where his jacket still lies discarded on the floor from last night.

He bends to grab it and starts to rustle around in the pockets. From bed, Bucky whistles appreciatively. Steve casts a look over his shoulder to find him sprawled out even more languorously, one leg drawn up and a hand behind his head, the other resting on his belly. Dangerously close to where his cock lies, starting to fill as he stares at Steve with a heavy-lidded gaze.

Bucky twitches his eyebrows at him, lips curling in that smirk that promises nothing but trouble and more besides, and Steve fights back a groan. Suddenly it’s a toss-up between whether he’d rather grab his sketchbook off the table and draw Bucky like he is right now, or climb back on top of him and learn all the different ways they can screw each other senseless. He’s got ideas.

Then Steve’s fingers brush the piece of metal in his pocket that eluded him yesterday. Briefly he closes his eyes, sends a brief _Thank you_ to whomever might be up there. Watching them not with the intent to punish, maybe, but… something else. _Every good and perfect gift is from above_ , Ma always used to say, quoting straight from the holy book _._ The best and most perfect thing in Steve’s life is right there in his bed.

He goes back over to Bucky and climbs on top of him, reminding him enough of their long, slow fuck this morning that he blushes and lowers his eyes, only to flush harder when he feels Bucky’s prick twitch against him at the same time Bucky groans under his breath and slides his hands around Steve’s narrow hips, then cups his ass. Teases his fingers along the crease. Steve bites his lip and holds out the key, looking at Bucky from under his eyelashes. Bucky, reluctantly, stops torturing Steve and withdraws his his hands so he can accept it. He glances at the key in his palm, stares at it a moment, then looks back at Steve with solemn eyes.

“I’d never ask you to leave. I’m asking you to stay, Buck.” Steve’s throat works around what could be a sob or a shout of joy. But he meets Bucky’s eyes and reaches out so he can link their fingers together, closing their hands around the key. “Til the end of the line.”

“That’s my line,” Bucky says, then flashes the slow, cocky smile Steve knows so well. But his voice is too tight, and he can’t pull it off for long; the smile wavers and disappears altogether when he sucks his lower lip between his teeth, blows out a hard breath through his nose and looks at Steve with eyes that have gone suspiciously shiny. Bucky grasps his fingers back, holds on.

“It can be mine too,” Steve offers. “Ours and no one else’s.”

With a nod and a small sniffle, Bucky manages to get his face under control enough to harden his expression into something shrewd, less like an open wound. “In that case, I accept. As long as you promise I won’t have to listen to any more of this ‘our love makes bad things happen’ bullcrap.” He pauses and cups Steve’s face, grip firm and unwavering like his gaze. “I can’t stand by it, Steve, you hear? I won’t.”

Steve shakes his head. “No. And I’m sorry.” He turns his face so he can lay a kiss in the center of Bucky’s palm, a promise. “I’m done with that. Gonna choose to believe loving you is what’ll save us instead.”

“Now you just sound like a Hallmark card.”

This time when Steve scoffs and tries to make a break for it, Bucky’s ready for him, hauls him back with a laugh and a smile. He smothers Steve’s face against his chest so that Steve’s voice comes out muffled when he says, “Don’t make me take it back, asshole. I was trying to have a moment here.”

“No way. You’re stuck with me now forever. Just try to get rid of me.” Bucky squeezes him tighter, slides down the bed so he can wrap his legs around Steve too until he’s well and truly immobile, grinning despite himself with a happiness he didn’t know it was possible to feel.

Steve winds his arms around Bucky’s waist too. Settles in for the long haul. “Yeah, can’t wait.”

A few moments go by there as they lie there, wrapped up in each other. Then: “Stevie?”

“Yeah, Buck?”

“I can’t wait either.”


End file.
